The sky over Rajpath on Saturday lit up in a kaleidoscope of colours as a swarm of 1,000 drones painted 3-D images of Bapu with his walking stick, the tricolour and the map of India. The brain behind the event were two IIT-Delhi alumni and their professor who spent six months to design and manufacture the drones and prepare different animations to be recreated in the sky.
Tanmay Bunkar and Anuj Kumar Barnwal, physics graduates from IIT Delhi, co-founded their startup Botlab Dynamics along with Dr Sarita Ahlawat in 2016. Their aim was to replace big, expensive drones with simpler and cheaper drones that can perform the same tasks and carry the same payloads by forming a network or collaborative aerial system. Over time they received funding from the Department of Science and Technology and I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC)at IIT-Delhi.
On Saturday, the sky over Rajpath was their canvas and drones their paintbrushes with which they brought to life different patterns to mark the 75 years of Independence. These included a giant three-dimensional globe, an ascending tricolour, the map of India with the Ashok Chakra in the centre, among others. This was an elaborate process that took several months to just conceptualise and design.
"We thought of a concept in which we would show six to seven patterns. This had to be then converted into an animation on a computer. This is a very time consuming exercise and each animation can take up to two weeks. And then we run this animation through simulations to ensure that drones don't collide with each other and account for factors like speed of the air. After this we feed the programme into each drone and then take them to the ground and carry out test flights," explains Dr. Ahlawat.
It was in July last year that the Ministry of Defence told Botlab Dynamics that they would be part of the Republic Day celebrations and that they had to aim for 1,000 drones. Until then, Tanmay and co had never handled more than 80 drones simultaneously.
"Reliability of these drones was key to ensuring that the show goes smoothly. We have 1,000 drones to pull off a show, but we don't have 1,000 people to maintain each drone, carry out a pre-flight check, etc. That is a luxury we just didn't have. So, we decided we will make drones ourselves so that we know the causes of different errors and failures," says Tanmay Bunkar.
Soon they started ordering parts and assembling the hardware. But this was the time that world's supply chains had snapped up and shortages of different parts such as semi-conductor chips began to hit different industries. This forced the team to look for alternatives within the country. That's when they found someone in Manesar who made motherboards for mobile phones and asked him to make printed circuit boards.
The outer casing of the drones was made by a maker of fruit baskets and broom handles in Seelampur, recounts Tanmay. The end product were drones that were nearly 80% made in India, including important parts like flight controllers (or the brain of the drones), GPS precision and motor controller.
"In India we need this capability. We need know how. We can't just be a service provider through startups like Zomato and Swiggy. We can't keep relying on the outside world for electronic based hardware and high speed trains, computers, lithium ion batters. I am happy that through our participation for R-Day celebrations we have been able to shine light on the need for hardware-based solutions," says Dr. Ahlawat.
Ask them what's next for the startup and Tanmay says he will be selling drone shows and that he is already flooded with inquiries from big brands who want to a big-bang launch for their products as well as Ministries who want to promote their schemes.
